Hallo und Herzliche Wilkommen - Hello and welcome!

I am currently studying intermediate level German in Munich. I completed my B2.2 German at Volkshochschule München, B2.1 from LMU and B1 from Goethe Institute. I started writing this blog (since level A2.1) in order to share what I learn during the lectures. I envisaged it to be a personal note to myself more than anything else. Nevertheless, if anything written here proves to be useful to you, please do leave a comment. I will continue to upload content as I learn new things, hence it is better to read older posts before reading new ones.

Let's start learning!

Thursday, 24 June 2010

Relativpronomen - Relative Pronouns

Today was the last lecture of A2.1. We reviewed relative pronouns and discussed about meeting new people. We also discussed how to speak about cooking recipes in German (as you will see in the exercises).

Grammar - Relative pronouns

A relative pronoun introduces a relative clause. It means when you have two clauses in the sentence, the relative pronoun from the relative clause refers to the subject or object from the main clause. Here is an example: He is the person who helps you. In this example notice the following:

who refers to the person.

"He is the person" is the main clause

"(the person) helps you" is the relative clause

There are couple of things to note when using relative pronouns (Relativpronomen) in German.

Der/die/das or welcher/welche/welches can be used. Although welche_ is usually more common in written German.

The main verb of the relative clause always goes to the end of the sentence.

Here is a table of all possible combinations of the relative pronouns: der/die/das

Case

singular

plural

male

female

neuter

-

Nominativ

der

die

das

die

Genitiv

dessen

deren

dessen

deren

Dativ

dem

der

dem

denen

Akkusativ

den

die

das

die

Here is a table of all possible combinations of the relative pronoun: welcher

Case

singular

plural

male

female

neuter

-

Nominativ

welcher

welche

welches

welche

Genitiv

welches

welcher

welches

welcher

Dativ

welchem

welcher

welchem

welchen

Akkusativ

welchen

welche

welches

welche

Übers Kennenlernen sprechen

Try to complete the following sentences with the vocabulary and grammar that you have learnt till now. When you click on the blanks, you can see my version of the solutions. Note that they are just one of the possibilities. Feel free to compose your own sentences. As usual, if any interesting thought strikes to your mind, do share them by leaving a comment.

Digression - der Milchkaffee

German: der Milchkaffee

French: Café au lait

I did not know that milk coffee is sometimes served in a bowl in Germany. Look at the picture alongside this text, it is an image of a milk coffee being traditionally served in Norway.[Courtesy: Wikipedia]